Great

I was always more of a casual fan of this show than anything else. I liked different parts of it. My main problem with it is that I was never sure it was even about parks and recreation. The show made fun of politics a lot. There are right ways and wrong ways to do that, but I think that they did everything the way that worked best. I'm not sure yet if I'll get DVDs of this or not. But to everyone else, I hope that you enjoy it too because I had a fun time tune into it.

Best show of all time.

My favorite show of all time. The most hilarious, lovable, brilliant, underrated cast ever. Their character relationships are developed and heartfelt. Everything about this show tickles me and warms me to the bone. So sad to see it end.

Old Chestnut

As a mega fan of The Office "Parks" was a huge disappointment. The only reason I even gave it 3 stars is because Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) is the best character I've seen since Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) and Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt) was another strong character. The show just became stagnant and lacked depth as it went on. The show became politically cliche. The citizens are all idiots and the "do-gooder" councilwoman played by Amy Poehler cares about people so much that she knows whats best for the sheeple. She lives in a town of obese people, who love big gulps the size of popcorn buckets with greasy burgers and see life through there own idiotic self satisfying lenses. In one episode Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) goes to a pawn shop and tells the cashier he needs his help with something. The cashier said he had just what he's looking for and pulled out a bucket of guns to sell him. It was nauseatingly obvious the message they were pushing which I can stomach if the show is funny but it only had funny moments. It was not a show where I was excited for the next episode to air and it the story line was boring to follow. Good news is "Archer" will be back in Jan of 15'.

Used to like

How This Show Is Different From The Office

Season 1, this WAS an Office copycat. Leslie Knope was an inept bumbler who took her job so seriously that no one took her seriously. Her employees, especially the guys, were straight men. But the show changed in its second season, starting with Leslie Knope.

Unlike Michael Scott, Leslie charms her employees into loving their job as much as she. She's highly capable and enthusiastic. She's cute as hell. Unlike Michael's employees, each of Leslie's is uniquely developed, hilarious, and--key word--lovable, strong enough to carry an episode on their own. Most shows are lucky to have one Great character who sticks with you: Gustavo Fring from Breaking Bad, Coach McGuirk from Home Movies... IMO, Parks and Rec has at least three: Leslie, Ron, and Jenn Barkley.

I stuck through Season 1 on Netflix because I had nothing else to do. It wasn't until "Hunting Trip," in Season 2, that I felt the show take a turn for the better. If you're a newbie, that's where I recommend you start. By the Season 2 finale, I felt so lucky to have stuck it out. Every episode from there to the end of Season 4 is hilarious. And I mean it. I love this show.

kid yo

What one might expect.

At least it's generally what I expected. It's an okay show, but inconsistent in my opinion. Some episodes are hilarious and others, just corny and dull. Despite all that, parks and rec is still a fun show to wind down with at the end of the night, assuming you catch a good episode. You should more often than

Parks & Recreation: A Show to Grow On

Having watched every episode of every season so far, I have to say that the show has had its ups and downs, mostly ups though. When I first sat down to watch it, I wasn't too impressed. Completely bored in fact with the utter lack of humor in the show. I was wondering how the show got the Golden Globe nominations it did. The acting and character development were abysmal. I was on my way to just quitting watching the show, but finding nothing else to do I piled on. The first season passed with barely a mark being made in my head.

The second season was a vast improvement to the first. The laughs were far more frequent and Poehler really began to shine. To be honest, the only thing that kept me going till that point was Nick Offerman's character. But then, I had a whole bunch of reasons to keep watching. One of the best things that happened to the show was getting rid of Paul Schneider. His acting was - in a nutshell - weak. He was the thing holding the show down. It's no wonder that ever since his exit from the show the laughs have been getting better and the show just manages to hold your attention.

Season three was the season Parks and Rec hit gold. Making Rob Lowe and Adam Scott part of the main cast was genius. This is around the time when I began to fall in love with the show. Everything about it just became infinitely more interesting.

The remaining two seasons continued the high brought on by the change in cast. Everyone else just seemed to get better as well. Ansari became funnier, Offerman more bad-ass, Plaza more quirky, Pratt more silly, Jones more expressive and Poehler more effervescent.

I was about to give up on the show, but I'm glad I plowed through the first season. If you got frustrated early on and decided to never watch the show again, I IMPLORE you to give it another go. Everything wrong with the show became everything right with it. Parks and Recreation - an incredible comedy to grow on.

I can't stand this show.

This is the worst show I've seen since Always Sunny. All the actors except the shoe polisher guy are terrible. The young girl just has no emotion whatsoever and it's extremely annoying to listen to her. The blond bitch is annoying with her exagerated enthousiasm. And the Indian guy is just pure annoying. He's stupid as hell. I've only had like one chuckle ever with this show. If somebody likes this show, the only thing that comes to my mind is that you have a terrible sense of humor. Comedy Central is ruining my vacation by putting this show so many times a day. Every time i see this show is on i feel like hitting my head against the wall. Conclusion: this show is made by the devil to annoy smart people.

One of the few shows that make me laugh...

The fact that ratings for this show exist with a score lower than 9 is surprising as this show naturally encourages me to laugh, a rare experience to be sure. I'm the kind of person that enjoys the comedies of Archer, the Office, Family Guy, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Curb Your Enthusiasm, I'm all over the map... and this show appeals to my zany side, my clever side and the side of me that enjoys watching character development.

I'd rate this show a 10/10 but there's the possibility a show could one day appear that will make me laugh harder.

Another show that was good briefly

Parks and Rec was a so-so show to start with but by the end of the first season and the start of the second the character development was making the show worth watching. Leslie's misguided over enthusiasm was easy to over look due to her rigorous work ethic and competency, leaving me with the feeling that I could put up with the stupidity of government if there were people with dedication like that. Ron Swanson of course was brilliant and easily provided the funniest moments in the show. But as the season has drudged on the insertion of the producers and actors obvious love affair with the democrat party and Leslie's gushing over Joe Biden, inserting partisan politics into the show has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. At the same time they have subtly changed Ron's character into a charactiture of what it was, he is now portrayed as an obstinate, sometimes ignorant, reckless, foolish and misguided representative of some type of obstructionist party who needs to be dragged into understanding the "right" position on issues.

By episode 10 of season 5 they had beaten any desire out of me to follow the show, and I sit here having just watched episode 22 of the last season of the office (not great either, just the sap in me finishing up the story lines), looking for something to entertain me and I still can't bring myself to click play on s5 episode 11.

You must be joking...

As pathetic, moronic and stupid as "The Office". Hard to believe this is still running, I was never able to endure a whole single episode, Poehlers permanent stupid expression and clueless jokes are worse than a root canal.

THIS SHOW IS AMAZING!!!!

This is seriously my favorite show of all time. It has funny, original ideas and the characters all have a funny story line and character, and it's just hilarious. Like, how did Jerry get such a hot wife or how is Leslie not the President? It's just hilarious, don't know why this show is getting a 7.3.

If you didn't like it, then go live in Eagleton

Amazing Show!

I was a little worried when I heard that the creators of the show had been the creators of The Office, because, let's face it, The Office sucks. I realized rather quickly, however, that Parks and Recreation far surpasses The Office. I hate to make the comparison between the two shows, but seeing as how they are both "mocumentaries" of sorts, it's difficult not to. I should explain myself and say that the faux documentary aspect is annoying in The Office, and it tends to bore me, which is one of the reasons for my concern that it would be another Office. I gave Parks and Recreation a chance because a friend with a markedly reliable taste in comedy recommended it to me. Boy, was I glad I took his recommendation seriously, Parks and Recreation is an incredibly funny show, and the mocumentary aspect serves as an enhancement, not a detriment, especially because the documentary-esque clips/interviews are not so predictable, like they tend to be in some shows, and they're typically funny and charming. The opening scene of the pilot had me believing the show was another Office. Amy Poeler interviews a child in a park about the amount of fun she's having. I figured it would be old people humor, which is what I consider The Office to be. However, I watched all of season 1 and some of season 2 in one shot and discovered that the characters develop well, are charming, and are deserving of episodes that center around them, as opposed to every episode being "Leslie-centric". These episodes centered around characters surface well into season 2, but they really assist the viewer in falling in love with the cast. Aziz Ansari can't miss, so I knew he would be funny, Amy Poeler's incredibly funny, and I'm becoming more and more of a fan of hers, Nick Offerman's Ron Swanson character is potentially the funniest sitcom character of all time (actually, I heard somewhere he was voted "funniest sitcom actor since Michael Richards as Kramer, which I agree with), Chris Pratt is awesome and classic as Andy, Aubrey Plaza is a great yin to the yang of the overly energetic Leslie, and is always funny, Rashida Jones is a cool "best friend" character, Adam Scott is cool, and a great match for Leslie, Rob Lowe is funny (and too much of him would be bad, so they do a fantastic job of using him with a proper amount of restraint), Retta's one-liners are funny (and, again, the small doses of her character are perfect), and in the true spirit of the show, I saved Jerry for last - awesome fall guy, and a good sport. My only complaint in terms of cast was Mark Brandanewicz, but he's gone anyway, so what's the difference? I highly recommend this show!

The show makes me laugh out loud.

The great thing about the show is that it does not take the easy way out. The characters are developing well and are going in directions that are far from predictable. The Tom Haverford character is refreshngly non-sterotypical without trying too hard to be. Also the character is funny without even saying a word. His facial expressions are priceless. The Leslie Knope character plays well with the other characters. She maintains her innocence without coming off as as cartoon character. However, it is the Tom charater that is the star of the show. The writers have been careful not to feature him too much at the expense of the other characters. Finally, the secondary characters as well as the one-shot characters contribute to the quality of the show because they are given great lines and are involved is meaningful storylines.

My new favorite show

I never watched the show, but was always interested in it. So i bought season 2 on itunes, and fell in love with the show. I bought seasons 3 and 4 so im all caught up now and i must say its much better then most of the comedys on tv right now. Recommend it to anyone!

Parks and Recreation Series Review

Parks and Recreation is an NBC sitcom somewhat similar in premise to The Office, but with the focus being on government politics rather than business politics. It's from the same people who do SNL and The Office so go figure.

First off, the first few episodes are bad, but once you get through the first 4-6 episodes the show is nearly as good as The Office, and starts to come into its own. The series suffers in the beginning because it was trying way too hard to be the second coming of The Office. The show is shot documentary style, like The Office, with characters giving side interviews. Amy Poehler from Saturday Night Live plays Leslie Knope, the leader of the Parks Department. Amy's problem in the first few episodes is that she came off less like a sitcom character and more like an SNL Skit character by overacting too much. Will Sasso from Mad TV has the same problem. Anyway, the Leslie character starts off as basically a female version of Michael Scott before hitting her own stride later on.

Rashida Jones (Karen Filipelli from The Office) plays Ann Perkins, but early on you can't really tell the difference between her Ann Perkins character and the character that she played on The Office (Karen Filipelli). As the show wears on though, she starts to distinguish Ann Perkins from Karen Filipelli.

Another thing that plagued Parks and Recreation early on was miscasting. Paul Schneider played Mark Brendanawicz, who was given the back story of a bad boy/playboy but it wasn't believable because Mark's character had absolutely no personality and came off more like a poor man's Jim Halpert. He was supposed to be this handsome playboy, but he just came off like a geek with no personality.

April Ludgate is basically the ANTI-Kelly Kapoor. She's the exact opposite. While Kelly had the personality of a mindless, shopaholic, shallow tween... April is a sarcastic, quiet, emo kid who doesn't care about anything.

Ron Swanson is like a more manly Dwight Schrute. He's not quite as over-the-top, but he fills the same sort of anti-government survivalist role and he's hilarious.

Jerry Gergich is basically the punching bag of the group. Everyone picks on him similarly to Phyllis on The Office.

Tom Haverford is another comedic character who hits it well. He's sort of like a younger more immature Indian version of Barney Stinson.

Andy Dwyer is the resident moron that every sitcom has who seems to get dumber as the show wears on.

Donna Meagle sort of fills comedic voids. She's alright too.

Once the second season starts, the show gets really good. I urge EVERYONE who likes The Office to just hold on through the first season (Luckily, season one is only 6 episodes). The show takes about 6-8 episodes to really start to get into it. The series gets even better once Rob Lowe and Adam Scott join the cast as the "good cop/bad cop" supervisors who come in to fix the department. PLEASE give this show a chance. It's awesome once you get out of the first season.

One of the best show's on TV

I may have started watching the show mid-second season but since then I have watched every episode and what I can tell you is one of the best show's on TV. Seriously don't know why people have such a hard time liking it. I watched the first season. loved it. 2nd 3rd 4th they have all made me laugh so much. As far as people comparing this show to the office. I know they are similar but they are still seperate shows. Try watching the show with a more open mind you'll like it :)

In all 23 minutes of the pilot, I kinda laughed one time.

I just watched the pilot in light of Chuck ending and being caught up on everything else. I made it to about minute 21 and just shut it off. I was only ever able to muster up one little chuckle during the entire pilot and it was a weak one anyway.

The star (can't remember her name) is a little irritating. I liked Rashida Jones a lot in the Office and she seems to have a good role going for her on this show, but the premise of the show is kinda strange and the characters aren't as funny as they are advertised in my opinion. I'm sure there are plenty of people who can find the beauty in this show but I am not one of them.

In all fairness, I still think it's better than, say, Friends or Big Bang Theory for example. But then again, those shows are beyond awful. My rating is entirely objective, I have no real biases here. If someone can convince me that the show gets funnier after the pilot then I will think about giving it another shot later on.

Oh and by the way, the Indian guy seemed like he'd get funnier as the show goes on. I recognize him but I can't recall from where. The show gets a 6.5 instead of a 6 for that.

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